Izaak Walton Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton has the distinction of having written not just one book that the world would not willingly let die, as John Milton aspired to do, but two. His treatise on fishing, The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation. Being a Discourse of Fish and Fishing, Not unworthy the perusal of most Anglers (1653), has been reprinted at an average rate of once a year since his death. Only the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer have been reprinted more often. Although Walton's biographies, several of which were collected as The Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Mr. Richard Hooker, Mr. George Herbert. To which are added some Letters written by Mr. George Herbert, at his being in Cambridge: With others to his Mother, the Lady Magdalen Herbert, written by John Donne, afterwards Dean of St. Pauls (1670), have not reappeared with anything...